


Identity Conflict

by eternaleponine



Series: Where There Is A Flame [9]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 18:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9084670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: Costia wants Lexa to go to the LGBT+ Alliance meeting with her.  Lexa wants to write her paper.  But is that really what they're arguing about?





	

"Hey," Costia said, wrapping her arms around Lexa from behind, and Lexa jerked so hard she nearly slammed her head back into the bridge of Costia's nose. Luckily, Costia had good enough reflexes to dodge. 

Lexa yanked the headphones from her ears and pulled out of the embrace, her heart pounding against her ribcage. "How did you get in?" she asked, trying and failing to keep the edge out of her voice. 

"The door wasn't locked," Costia said. "Are you all right?"

Lexa took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "You could have knocked," she said. 

"I _did_ knock," Costia said. "You didn't answer."

"So you just walked in?"

Costia shrugged. "I don't see what the big deal is," she said. "Anyway, we need to go."

Of course she didn't see what the big deal was. What was Lexa's was hers... including, apparently, her dorm room. Enough of her stuff had been left there over the last few days that it was starting to feel that way, and Lexa hadn't had a chance to gather it up and return it. Which actually meant shoving it into her bag and quietly leaving it in Costia's room the next time she was there, not handing it to her, because she didn't want to make it seem like she didn't want Costia's things in her space. She just hated clutter in general, and her roommate wasn't the neatest person, so she found herself on edge a lot over stupid little stuff because the ambient 'noise' of the room grated on her.

"Go where?" Lexa asked, glancing at her phone as if it would tell her.

Which, in fact, it did. Alliance Meeting, Student Union, 7:00 p.m. Which was 15 minutes from now, across campus. Shit. She'd forgotten. 

"Go without me," she said. "I have to get this done, and—"

"I can't go without you," Costia said. "How would that look?"

Lexa raised her eyebrows. "It would look like I'm a conscientious student who wants to get a paper written more than five minutes before its due," she said. 

"When _is_ it due?" Costia asked. 

"Tomorrow," Lexa said. "It needs to be in my professor's inbox before the start of class or it will be marked late and lose a full letter grade right off the bat."

"What time—"

"Costia, stop," Lexa said. "I t—asked you to go without me. I don't see what the big deal is."

"The big deal is that you knew about this meeting, _obviously_ ," she gestured towards Lexa's phone, "and now you're blowing it off like it doesn't matter."

"It _doesn't_ matter," Lexa said. "I have gone to every meeting with you all semester. Every. Single. One. And Every. Single. Week the same thing happens. People show up late and waste at least five minutes apologizing and explaining why they were late. Another five minutes goes towards half of the group commiserating with the person while the other half bitches about how they are _so_ sick of hearing all of their excuses. We lose several minutes waiting for the secretary to find the minutes from last meeting, and another few while they try to figure out what the cryptic messages that they've left for themself actually mean, because apparently it is nowhere in the requirements for being elected secretary that you actually need to be able to take coherent notes. Then—"

"Where is this coming from?" Costia asked. "I get it, you're stressed. You left your paper until the last minute and now—"

"If you get it, then why are we even still having this conversation?" Lexa asked. "Costia, I love you, but I don't love the fact that you seem to think that we need to do everything _together_. If you want to go to the meeting, go to the meeting. Maybe it will be different this time, and then you can tell me all about it tomorrow. At lunch. After my paper has been turned in."

"If we didn't do things together, you wouldn't do anything at all!" Costia said. "You would be a hermit, just going to class and then coming back to your room and doing your homework and never having any _fun_."

"I think you and I sometimes have different definitions of fun," Lexa said. "Going to a club that—" She stopped herself. She didn't want to say anything hurtful or offensive. She knew that the LGBT+ Alliance was a great thing for a lot of the students in it. Maybe they were just coming to terms with their identity. Maybe they were still figuring it out. Maybe they'd always known but had come from an environment where no one was supportive. Maybe they just like the opportunity to be around people who they didn't have to censor themselves around, because they didn't have to worry about how the people around them might react if they slipped and said something that might turn the less open-minded against them.

But she wasn't any of those things. She'd always known who she was. She'd never tried to hide it, and she'd never cared what anyone else thought about it. She worried about safety in certain environments, sure, but even that less than most people, because she knew if push came to shove (literally) she could take care of herself. 

For a lot of the people there, they were just happy to be around other people who shared at least some part of their identity. For her, that wasn't enough. She didn't want to just sit around and talk about doing things; she wanted to actually get out there and _do_ them. If not then what was the point?

"Look. I'll go next week. This week I need to write this paper." 

Costia looked at her, frowning, and finally sighed. "Fine," she said. "But seriously, Lexa. It's not healthy, spending your whole life locked up in your own head."

It also wasn't healthy to have your head explode because someone had just proposed for the third week in a row the fact that they should 'like, _definitely, absolutely_ do something for like, the less fortunate?' and then have it devolve into a discussion of implausible plans that would never come to fruition, or a debate riddled with social justice buzzwords that never seemed to actually amount to anything beyond everyone agreeing that something needed to be done about how much the world sucked.

It shocked her that Costia never stepped up and took charge. When they'd been in high school, she had constantly been organizing food drives, clothing drives, bake sales, car washes – anything and everything to achieve whatever her goal was for the cause _du jour_. Maybe as a freshman she didn't want to rock the boat; they were both still adjusting to college life, after all, and although she put on a good show, Lexa suspected that the adjustment was harder for Costia than she let on. 

She should probably ask her. She should probably check in more, but somehow Costia would find a way to twist it around and turn it back on her if she didn't want to talk about it... and she never really seemed to want to talk about it, with 'it' being anything that she didn't have complete control over. 

Maybe they were too much alike in that way. 

Lexa sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose, realizing then that Costia was still standing there, probably expecting some kind of answer. She didn't have one to give. "I'm sorry," she said instead. "I'll see you later, okay? Tomorrow."

"Not tonight?"

"Not tonight," Lexa said. "Paper. Roommate."

"You know, if—" 

"I know," Lexa said, cutting her off because she didn't want to get into it. She didn't want to fight. She was tired and her head hurt and she was hungry because she'd accidentally missed dinner and the dining hall was closing now, so she was shit out of luck. "Okay? Please."

Costia relented. "I'm going to be late," she said. 

"If you are, just walk in and sit down," Lexa said. "They don't need to know your life story."

"You mean they don't need to know yours," Costia said. "Do I at least get a kiss?"

"Of course," Lexa said, pushing herself up from her chair and kissing her gently. "Text me when you get in for the night?"

"Nothing is going to happen to me," Costia said. "You worry too much." 

"Please?"

"I will," Costia said. "You know you wouldn't have to worry if you—"

"You're going to be late, remember?"

"One more kiss for the road," Costia said, taking it without waiting for it to be offered. She waved as she left, not even fully shutting the door behind her. 

Lexa dropped back down into her desk chair and buried her head in her hands. She couldn't decide if she wanted to scream, or cry, or both. Not that she had time for either one. She had a damned paper to write, and she hadn't meant to leave it to the last minute (although really that would be writing it tomorrow morning, not tonight, since it was due at ten). 

"Knock knock," someone said, and Lexa gritted her teeth but forced herself to look up. Anya. 

"Don't tell me I forgot some floor meeting or something," Lexa said. 

"No," Anya said. "I actually just wanted to see if you were interested in ordering pizza with me."

"What?" The offer, and its timing, were too perfect for her to actually believe that she as hearing Anya correctly and not just experiencing auditory hallucinations brought on by hunger (which was almost certainly not a thing). 

"Pizza? If you've already eaten, it's cool. I just figured—"

"No," Lexa said. "I mean yes. No, I haven't eaten. Yes, I'd like to order with you." She shook her head, reached for her wallet... remembered it was empty. "Except I have no cash."

"No worries," Anya said. "I can cover it. Just pay me back tomorrow or whenever you get a chance to get to the ATM. I'm putting it on my card anyway."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely."

"Thanks."

"I'm just getting cheese," Anya said. "I hope that's okay."

"It's fine," Lexa said. 

"Okay. Be right back." Anya went out into the hall, and Lexa could hear her rattling off the order to the pizza place. After she hung up, she came back in. "Thirty minutes," she said. "Do you want me to leave you alone, or...?"

"I don't even know," Lexa said, which was the absolute truth. 

"Everything okay?"

"I don't know."

Anya came in and sat down on her bed. "Look, if you need to talk," she said, "I'll listen. As your RA, or as your friend, or both. Whatever you need."

Lexa nodded, and for a second she thought she might even actually manage to tell her, to say all of the things that were crowding her mind, leaving no room for the things that she needed to be thinking about. Like her damn paper. But the words dried up on her tongue, and finally she just shook her head. 

"Or Modern Family is on," Anya said. "If you'd rather just veg while we wait." She smirked. "And don't even try to tell me that you don't watch it, because there are only two kinds of people – those who watch Modern Family, and those who lie about it."

Lexa cracked a small smile. "That actually sounds good," she said. 

"Come on then," Anya said. "I'm sure whatever drama you're having will pale in comparison to that of the Pritchett clan."

Lexa got up and followed her down the hall to her room, a big single that was one of the perks of being an RA. She sat down on the bed, propping herself up against the wall with pillows that Anya tossed at her. She wondered what Costia would say. Hermits didn't hang out and watch TV with people, after all. 

But probably she would choose to focus on the fact that she wasn't working on her paper, and if she was going to take an hour off, she could have come to the meeting after all.

Anya turned on the TV, and when she set the remote down, she quietly, without comment, put a box of tissues next to it... and they both pretended that when her breath hitched, it was just laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, this one is kind of a downer. Hopefully I can summon something a little more fluffy for the last few days of the month.


End file.
